1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to online trading exchange systems and, more particularly, to an online telecommunications trading exchange that is capable of automatically settling trading accounts for buyers and sellers of telecommunications services.
2. Description of the Related Art
The cost of a long distance telephone call is usually paid by the calling party rather than by the called party. Payment for the call is typically collected from the calling party by the carrier that originated the service, either directly or through the agency of the caller""s local telephone service provider. Consequently, when a call is placed from a first location served by an originating carrier to a second location served by a different terminating carrier, provision must be made to share with the terminating carrier some of the revenue collected by the originating carrier from the calling party.
For international telephone calls, this revenue sharing has traditionally been accomplished through the use of settlement agreements. Settlement agreements typically establish an accounting rate related to the cost of connecting the call between the countries, and specify how the accounting rate will be split between the two carriers. This split is typically 50xe2x80x9450.
For example, assume that a United States carrier and an overseas carrier negotiate a settlement agreement with a one dollar per minute accounting rate and a 50xe2x80x9450 revenue split. In accordance with the agreement, the U.S. carrier must pay 50 cents for every minute of connect time to called locations serviced by the overseas carrier. Conversely, the overseas carrier must pay 50 cents for every minute of connect time on calls terminated by the U.S. carrier.
As has been recognized, however, the negotiated accounting rate is frequently significantly higher than the actual cost of completing the international call. See, e.g., Frieden, Accounting Rates: The Business of International Telecommunications and the Incentive to Cheat, 43 Federal Communications Law Journal 111, 117, which is hereby incorporated by reference. For this reason, and because outbound calling volumes from the United States are significantly greater than inbound calling volumes from many foreign countries, U.S. carriers make large outbound payments to overseas carriers. In large measure, these charges are ultimately passed on to rate payers.
This payment imbalance is exacerbated when overseas carriers route inbound U.S. traffic under their control via private telephone lines into the United States. In this way, the overseas carriers are able to avoid paying high accounting rate settlements for calls to the United States from their countries, while receiving high accounting rate settlements from U.S. carriers who are forced to route outbound U.S. traffic through the overseas carrier because the overseas carrier is a monopolist in its home country. Moreover, overseas carriers often employ these alternative less-expensive routings for inbound U.S. traffic despite express contractual provisions in settlement agreements prohibiting such behavior.
To date, U.S. carriers have been forced to suffer such payment imbalances and have no immediate way to respond to breaches of contract by overseas carriers because of the significant time and expense required to reconfigure the global network to reroute calling traffic. The cumbersome reconfiguration process gives foreign carriers the opportunity to route inbound U.S. traffic via private lines, and otherwise run up settlement balances, without fear of retaliation from U.S. carriers.
More generally, this inflexible routing structure precludes telephone service providers from taking advantage of fluctuations in world-wide telephone rates. It would be desirable to provide a way for dynamic routing in response to rate changes so as to pass the savings onto the consumer. There is also a need to provide telephone companies with means to dynamically purchase and sell blocks of telephone connection bandwidth.
The need for flexible allocation of connection routes and for an ability to trade connection bandwidth accordingly exists not only in the international arena but in any internal market allowing competition in the field of communications.
The present invention provides a system and method for flexibly routing communications transmissions between networks of different service providers in an efficient manner.
In a preferred embodiment, service providers submit to a server node through a wide-area network offers to sell telecommunications services and requests to purchase telecommunications services. Each of the service offers and service requests includes price or rate, information and the level of quality associated with a telecommunications route defined by an origination location and a destination location. The server node matches the service requests to the service offers and, preferably at the end of each trading cycle, generates a routing plan or rate table based on the matched service requests and service offers. The routing plan is translated or otherwise encoded into a set of routing instructions for a network switch or router connected to the networks of the service providers. Upon receipt of the instructions, the network switch or router routes communications (e.g., voice, fax, or data packets) from a requesting service provider (i.e., buyer) to the corresponding matched offering service provider(s) (i.e. seller) according to the instructions. The network switch or router may include a module for measuring or monitoring the level of quality of transmission of a route through the seller""s network. In the case where the seller""s network is a circuit switched network, network performance parameters such as Post Dial Delay (PDD), Answer Seizure Ratio (ASR), and Average Call Duration (ACD). These quality measurements are then fed back to the server node, which then determines whether the seller""s specified level of quality for the route differs from the quality measurements. If the quality measurements fall below the specified level, a new routing plan will be generated such that the buyer""s telecommunications traffic will be routed through another seller""s network that meets the quality requirements specified by the buyer. If subsequent quality measurements of the original seller""s network indicate compliance once again, a new routing plan is generated such that the buyer""s telecommunications traffic will be once again routed through the original seller""s network.
The server node may be programmed to substantially optimize the routing plan or rate table with respect to one or more parameters such as price, network utilization, traffic volumes, etc.
Telecommunications services such as connect time (e.g., minutes of usage or a fixed period of usage) may be purchased on a transaction-by-transaction (e.g., call-by-call) basis or in larger blocks. Service requests may be submitted manually by an operator of the requesting service provider through a wide-area network such as the Internet, or automatically by a telecommunications node associated with the requesting service provider. The telecommunications node may also be programmed to dynamically monitor current volume and sale or purchase of communication time or bandwidth on the basis of actual and predicted network requirements.
In one embodiment, the server node administers all aspects of the network including authentication of carriers, risk management, financial transactions, settlement, and contract management. The server node is connected to a database that maintains accounting information including its cash receipt accounts, account receivables of each buyer and account payables of each seller, etc. The server node is also connected to a financial service node operated by, for example, a bank. The financial service node maintains financial accounts for the buyers, the sellers, and the server node. When the server node determines a trade has been cleared, e.g., when bids and asks have been matched and calls from a buyer have been routed through a seller""s telecommunications network, the server node informs the financial service node the appropriate amount (based on, for example, Call Detail Records information) to credit and debit from the accounts of the respective buyer and seller. The server node then adjusts the balance of the accounts of the buyer and seller stored in its database.
In the case where the buyer wishes to pay the seller only after a period of, for example, thirty (30) days, from the date the trade is cleared, and the seller wants a shorter payment period, there will be a pre-approved procedure for settling the buyer""s and seller""s accounts. In one embodiment, the server node transmits a pledge to the financial service node, pledging its cash receipt accounts and/or account receivables as collateral or security in exchange for advance payments from the financial service node to the seller who requires a shorter payment period. Upon receipt of the pledge, the financial service node charges the server node""s account a previously agreed fee and credits the seller""s account by the amount of the advance payment. In turn, the server node debits the buyer""s account, maintained in its database, the amount of the advance payment plus the fee incurred by the advance payment.